Maybe it's unavoidable, but this is very sad to me. A library cannot simultaneously be a flophouse for the homeless and an institution for learning for kids.

Maybe it's unavoidable, but this is very sad to me. A library cannot simultaneously be a flophouse for the homeless and an institution for learning for kids. And unfortunately, in many cities, we've decided that the former matters more than the latter. I would have been intellectually destitute as a kid had I not had weekly trips to the library. I lived in the middle of nowhere, and there were no adults around who knew anything about what I was interested in. Perhaps the web would now fill that need. Not sure, though. It was a magical place.